New Mexico has a stormy gaming history. When the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was signed by Congress in 1989, it looked like New Mexico would be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino bandwagon. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the situation.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King appointed a panel in Nineteen Ninety to draft a compact with New Mexico American Indian tribes. When the panel arrived at an agreement with two important local bands a year later, Governor King declined to sign the agreement. He would hold up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it appeared that Native gaming in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Native tribes, anti-wagering groups were able to tie the contract up in the courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing the compact, thereby denying the state of New Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing revenues over the next several years.
It required the Compact Negotiation Act, passed by the New Mexico legislature, to get the ball rolling on a full contract between the Government of New Mexico and its American Indian bands. A decade had been burned for gambling in New Mexico, which includes Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo business has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico charity game owners acquired only $3,048. This number grew to $725,150 in 2000, and exceeded a million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo revenues have increased steadily since that time. 2005 witnessed the greatest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the operators.
Bingo is apparently beloved in New Mexico. All sorts of providers look for a piece of the action. With hope, the politicos are through batting around gaming as an important issue like they did back in the 90’s. That’s probably wishful thinking.